Dozens of residents have evacuated the remote islands of southern Japan which have been shaken by nearly 1,600 earthquakes in recent weeks, the local mayor announced on Monday.
There was no major physical damage to the hardest island of Akuseki, even after an earthquake of 5.1 coarse that hit at night, said Genichiro Kubo, which is based on another island.
But the almost non-stop shackles since June 21 have caused serious stress to residents of the region, many of which were deprived of sleep.
Of the 89 residents of Akuseki, 44 evacuated to the Kagoshima regional center on Sunday, while 15 others also left another island nearby, Kubo said at a press conference.
The municipality, which includes seven inhabited islands and five uninhabited islands, is around 11 am on a Kagoshima ferry.
Since June 21, the region has known early Monday what seismologists call a swarm of 1,582 earthquakes.
Experts said they thought that an underwater volcano and magma flows could be the cause. They say they cannot predict how long the tremors will continue.
“We cannot predict what could happen in the future. We cannot see when it ends,” the Kubo mayor told journalists.
A similar period of intense seismic activity in the region occurred in September 2023, when 346 earthquakes were recorded, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Japan is one of the most active countries in the world, sitting at the top of the four main tectonic plates along the western border of the Pacific Ring of Fire.
The archipelago, which houses approximately 125 million people, generally experiences around 1,500 tremors each year and represents around 18% of the world’s earthquakes.
Some foreign tourists have retained Japan due to unfounded fears tanned by social media that a major earthquake was imminent.
A particular concern was a manga comic reissued in 2021 which predicted a major disaster on July 5, 2025 – which did not occur.
